Antonia Locatelli


Antonia Locatelli was an Italian Roman Catholic missionary educator who had lived in Rwanda since the early 1970s.
In March 1992, she witnessed massacres of the Tutsis taking place in the Bugesera region, south of Kigali. In an attempt to save 300 to 400 Tutsis, she phoned up the Belgian embassy, French RFI Radio and the BBC.
On the night between 9 and 10 March 1992, she was gunned down by a group of presidential guards who had arrived from Kigali specifically for the purpose.
Her murder was annoucend on RFI the next morning :
" Since the beginning of the massacres in the region, she was in charge of Tutsi refugees’ sheltering. Her house was full of refugees, women and children, who didn’t get room inside the church or in classrooms which were already packed. She informed us hourly about the tragedy’s development. And it is thanks to her testimony that we knew that soldiers were circling Nyamata Church to prevent refugees from going there."
Antonia Locatelli is buried in Nyamata, near the Church in which, during the Rwandan genocide two years later, ten thousand Tutsis were massacred.
During the commemoration ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, Paul Kagame payed tribute to Antonia Locatelli in his openning speech :
" Joining us today are families from other countries, whose husbands, fathers, sisters, and aunts were claimed by the same deadly ideology. Tonia Locatelli, killed in 1992 for telling the truth of what was to come. The only comfort we can offer is the commonality of sorrow, and the respect owed to those who had the courage to do the right thing."

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